Should You Marry Mateo?
by P.I.D
Summary: Imelda's mother sets her daughter up with every eligible bachelor in town. Imelda is less than pleased.
1. Chapter 1

Just a heads up, this is Chapter One of a three chapter work. The other chapters should be up in the near future.

* * *

"Two hours!" Imelda's mother shrieked when Imelda returned from the market. The other members of Imelda's family, her Tía Natalia and her cousins Gloria and Luciana, barely looked up from their activity of making lime soup. But Imelda's mother had completely halted her work to glare at her daughter. "Two hours you have been gone!"

"Sí," Imelda said slowly, "lo sé." She gave her mother a curious look and set down the jar of molasses she had gone to market to obtain. "What's the problem?"

"The problem," her mother exclaimed, stabbing the cutting board with her knife, "is that you should have been back an hour ago. How long does it take to buy molasses?"

"It was a nice day; I stopped to talk to some people," Imelda explained, still confused. When she had left her home earlier that day, the household had been calm and pleasant. But now Óscar was outside hastily plucking a chicken, Felipe was scrubbing the patio, and every female member of her family had congregated in the kitchen with the apparent purpose making a pot of lime soup as quickly as possible.

"Ay!" Her mother resumed chopping the cilantro. "Now she decides to be sociable! For sixteen years I've been asking my daughter to make chit chat with her neighbors and she chooses today to do so!" She dumped a pile of quartered onions into a pot and stuck her head out of the doorway. "Óscar! Where is that chicken?"

Óscar called back, "Almost done, mamá!"

"I don't understand," Imelda said slowly. "I thought we were having tacos tonight…"

"We are," her mother agreed. "And tamales, and chile peppers roasted with cheese, and pickled cactus, and roasted corn, and—"

"Mamá!" Imelda exclaimed. "We don't need that much food! We can't eat that much, even with Héctor."

"Héctor?" her mother dropped her spoon in the soup pot and stared at her daughter. "Is that músico coming? Ay!" She sighed in exasperation.

Tía Natalia stopped seeding a chile pepper, grabbed a pair of tongs, and fished the spoon from the pot.

Meanwhile, Imelda's face had become stony. "Yes," she said stiffly. "I told you I was going to invite him this morning, remember?"

Cousin Gloria elbowed Luciana, perhaps having guessed why it had taken Imelda two hours to buy molasses. Natalia sent her daughters a warning look and began to dry off the spoon.

Imelda addressed her mother. "I thought you liked Héctor," she said. Or to be more precise, she had gathered that to her mother, Héctor was a non-entity, whose presence elicited no reaction, positive or negative. Boys with no family and little chance of earning a stable living were not worth her notice.

"Oh, the boy's nice enough," her mother allowed. "But he's always here."

"He's been touring for a month," Imelda corrected. "That's why I invited him tonight—I thought he would have some interesting stories to share."

This time Luciana elbowed Gloria. Natalia sent them another warning look.

"Well," her mother sighed, grabbing the spoon from Natalia and resuming stirring the soup, "what's done is done. I guess you can't uninvite him. Maybe he can help out—play some love songs, help with the mood…" She stuck her head out of the doorway again. "Óscar, where is my chicken?"

"Almost done!" Óscar repeated. A stray feather wafted through the doorway.

Again, Imelda looked at her mother with confusion. "The mood?" She raised an eyebrow. "Is Javier coming?"

Javier was Gloria's fiancé. He was one of the more tolerable of the boys from town, though privately Imelda still thought Gloria was too good for him.

Imelda's mother looked at her like she was stupid. "Javier and Gloria are already engaged. What do they need a romantic mood for?"

Gloria stopped cutting the limes. "What does that mean?" she demanded.

Imelda's mother ignored Gloria, and still addressed Imelda. "The mood is for you and Mateo, of course!"

It was a good thing Imelda had already set down the jar of molasses; if she hadn't, she would have dropped it at this revelation. "Mateo?" she demanded. "Mateo Orejón? That borracho?"

Her mother squared her shoulders. "Do not say such things!"

"Why not?" Imelda demanded. "Everyone says the man is a drunk! Señor Corredor says it, and he should know!" Señor Corredor was the owner of the local taverna, and consequently saw a lot of Mateo Orejón. "Mama, I don't need you to set me up, and even if I did, I could do better than Mateo Orejón!"

"Sí, sí," her mother agreed. "Of course you can. But not right away—we have to start with Mateo!" Noticing the puzzled looks everyone was shooting her, Imelda's mother elaborated. "Right now, mija, you have a reputation as a…" she turned to Luciana. "What do the boys call her?"

"Una fierecilla!" Luciana obliged cheerfully, ignoring the glare Imelda was now shooting her.

"Sí, una fierecilla," her mother agreed. She dumped the limes into the pot and stirred a few times. "So we start with Mateo. I heard this morning he was looking for a wife. Be nice with him. Then the other boys in town will see that you are not una fierecilla and maybe they will notice how pretty you can be when you are not frowning like you are now."

Imelda's frown only deepened. "I do not need to be set up," she repeated with a clenched jaw.

"Are you engaged?" her mother demanded.

Imelda had to admit that she was not.

"Then you need to be set up," her mother concluded. "Once the boys think you are not so bad, then we try for Bruno."

"Bruno?" The last time Imelda had seen Bruno Cortés, he had been brawling with a very inebriated Mateo. "You want me to marry Bruno?"

"Of course not!" her mother tsked. "You are so slow today. We need Bruno because he makes a good living. If he desires you, everyone else sees that you are really something. After Bruno, then there is Diego."

"That bore?" Imelda demanded.

Luciana and Gloria nodded, silently seconding their cousin's assessment.

"You want an interesting husband?" her mother asked. "I'm sorry I can't find you any lion tamers to marry! Ay, so picky!" She stirred the pot so quickly that some of the soup nearly sloshed over the side. "Diego comes from a good family. If you can win over Diego, then we make our move for Rodrigo."

"Rodrigo?" Imelda repeated, her fingernails biting into her skin because her fists were balled so tightly. "Who's after him, the Governor?"

"No, no," her mother corrected her matter-of-factly. "Rodrigo's the end. You're going to marry Rodrigo."

"I am not marrying Rodrigo!"

"Not looking like that, you aren't," her mother agreed. "Gloria, that's enough peppers, mija," she waved at Gloria to stop her dicing. "Get Imelda ready for Mateo—lend her your pink dress, make her hair look like…ah…" she waved her hand, "like yours does—maybe some ribbons."

"I am not marrying Rodrigo!" Imelda repeated because she felt like her point hadn't quite sunk in. She had one more statement of defiance: "And I am not wearing Gloria's pink dress!" she added as her cousin led her away.

"What's wrong with my pink dress?" asked a somewhat insulted Gloria.

* * *

Three hours later Imelda was wearing Gloria's pink dress. Not only that, but Gloria had woven ribbons into her hair, spritzed her with rosewater, and even applied a little of the carmine powder that cousin Dolores had sent them from her trip to Mexico City.

Gloria stepped back and surveyed the result.

"Well," she sighed, "you'd be pretty if you smiled."

"I won't be smiling with Mateo," Imelda muttered, folding her arms across her chest.

Gloria sighed and put away the carmine powder. "All my hard work, wasted on Mateo, who's too drunk to care, and Héctor, who's too enamorado to care." She sighed once more. "Hasn't Héctor proposed yet?"

Imelda had frozen as soon as Héctor's name had come up. After she'd had a few seconds to recover, she glared at her cousin, who was now rolling up the leftover ribbons. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said stiffly.

Gloria rolled her eyes. "Anda ya! Your mama may be blind to it, but no one else is. Why else would he visit so often? And why else would you let him visit so often?"

Imelda stared into the mirror and adjusted the silver cross hanging around her neck. "I still think I should wear my blue dress," she said eventually.

Gloria pushed back one of Imelda's stray curls. "You look nice. Now tell Héctor to hurry up and propose. I don't want to spend my last few weeks as a señorita making lime soup for every bachelor in town."

* * *

Her mother sat her next to Mateo of course. Héctor would have wound up at the other end of the table were it not for the combined efforts of Gloria and Javier, who somehow conspired to push themselves two seats down. Perhaps it was an act of consideration, or perhaps they just preferred to sit at the other end of the table, where conversation flowed freely and naturally.

The same could not be said of Imelda's side of the table.

To his credit, Mateo did show up mostly sober, though he had a lingering stench of alcohol. He stuffed his red cheeks with food, and thought it crazy that Imelda to his right and Héctor to her right didn't seem to have appetites.

"These tamales are deliciosos!" Mateo proclaimed, and took a deep gulp from his glass of wine.

"How kind of you to say!" Imelda's mother said with a sugary smile. "Imelda made them!" she lied.

"Mis cumplidos, señorita!" Mateo said to Imelda. Bits of pork dropped from his open mouth.

Imelda mumbled some thanks before shifting herself to face her mother. "Mama, Héctor and Ernesto won the music competition in Dulzura."

Héctor was leaning forward, glaring at Mateo, either from dislike or from disgust. Underneath the table, Imelda's shoe stomped on Héctor's boot. He jumped in his seat, and let out a high-pitched yelp.

Imelda prompted Héctor again. "Isn't that right, Héctor? You won the competition?"

"Sí!" he exclaimed, slapping a nervous, wide smile on his face. "There were many, many excellent performers, but we triumphed! The crowd really seemed to like our new love song."

Imelda's mother barely glanced at Héctor. "Who doesn't love love songs?" she asked no one in particular. Then she addressed Mateo specifically. "Señor Orejón, you love love songs, yes?"

Mateo ceased gnawing his corn cob long enough to admit he had nothing against a love song.

"What was the prize for the competition?" called Luciana from the other end of the table. "Did you get money?"

Héctor confirmed that they had received some money. "But the real prize," he added, "is that this gives us entry to the larger competition in Tarascoto in a week."

"A week?" Imelda exclaimed. If anyone had been looking under the table, they would have seen her right hand release Héctor's left one. "You never told me that!"

"I told you that was the prize," Héctor insisted.

"But you never told me the next competition was in a week!"

"Imelda," Héctor said under his breath, flashing his eyes to Imelda's mother, who was offering Mateo more peppers, "we can discuss this later—"

Tío Lorenzo cleared his throat. "I heard that Señor Campos's niece is visiting him, and she comes all the way from—"

Imelda ignored Héctor's warning and her uncle's attempt to change the subject. "You just got back after being gone for a month! And you're leaving in a week—"

"—two days," Héctor unwisely corrected. "Ernesto's scheduled us five days of traveling. He wants us to hit some towns on our way—"

"Of course Ernesto has!" Imelda rolled her eyes and stabbed at the pickled cactus on her plate. "If he had his way, you'd never be in Santa Cecilia!"

"Imelda," Héctor hissed, "if we win the competition, we could get enough money that—" At this point, the only other conversation, Mateo asking for more wine, had died, and everyone was following Héctor's words. He paused, took a deep gulp from his glass, and turned to his other side. "Señorita Gloria," he said with large, fake smile, "when is the happy day to be?"

"Why do you care, Héctor?" Imelda demanded, jumping up from her chair. "You probably won't be in town for it, anyway!" She shoved her chair into the table, managing to crush Héctor's left leg in the process, and marched from the room.

Héctor winced with pain, but hurried after her. The remaining family members stared at each other in silence, and Mateo continued to drink his wine.

Imelda's mother looked back between the chair that Imelda had occupied and the chair that Héctor had occupied. Her eyes widened, then immediately narrowed, and she got up from her chair and left through the doorway taken by Imelda and Héctor.

Unperturbed by any of these exits, Mateo burped, swayed slightly in his seat, and took another tamale.

Javier was the first to speak. He turned to Gloria. "Does this mean we need to hire another musician for our wedding?"


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning when Óscar and Felipe were playing by the front gate, they found some splinters of wood, a guitar string, and a tuning peg.

"Imelda smashed his guitar!" Óscar deduced.

"Do you think she smashed it over his head?" Felipe wanted to know.

They searched the area, but couldn't find any blood, and sadly admitted to themselves that their sister had probably limited herself to mere property damage. Not that they disliked Héctor, but it would have made a much more interesting story.

"I don't know why anyone would want to marry Imelda," Óscar commented, attempting unsuccessfully to pluck a musical note from the guitar string. "She has such a temper."

"Ve tú a saber," Felipe shrugged. "But it sounds like Héctor doesn't want to marry Imelda. Isn't that the problem?"

Óscar wasn't sure, but this opened up a new line of inquiry. "If he's refusing to marry our sister, does that mean we need to duel him?"

The twins didn't like this idea, and soon determined that this duty would only be expected of them once they became adults.

"And hopefully Imelda will be married by then," Felipe added.

When they showed their cousin Luciana their discovery, she suggested their mother was responsible for smashing the guitar, and they had to admit that was a possibility. The three of them eagerly debated which scenario was more likely. Eventually, Luciana proposed just asking Imelda what had happened, and they headed to the vegetable patch where Imelda generally was this time of day, but when they noticed the force with which she was yanking weeds and vegetables alike, they decided to keep quiet.

Héctor did stop by that day, shoulders slumped, his hands clutching his straw hat to his chest. However, all he got for his efforts were a few dirt clods thrown at him and a warning not to be surprised if, the next time he came to Santa Cecilia, Imelda was married to Rodrigo Nieto.

"Come on, Imelda!" Héctor sighed, all but rolling his eyes. "You're not going to marry Rodrigo Nieto!"

"You don't think I could marry Rodrigo?" Imelda demanded. "I could marry Rodrigo!"

"I know you _could_ marry Rodrigo," Héctor allowed, "but you're _not_ going to marry Rodrigo!"

At this point Imelda marched from the patio to her bedroom, where Héctor couldn't follow her. But he did call after her that this ridiculous plan of her mother's wasn't going to work. Then he added that he would be back in a couple of weeks. "Don't get married without me!" he shouted before he left the house. This just caused Imelda to slam her shutters, and she didn't come out of her room until late in the evening, when she asked her mother to please invite Bruno over. It had been a long time since the twins had seen their mother this happy.

The twins didn't like Bruno. He was a large, burly man who put them in headlocks and gave them coscorrons. He thumped them on their backs so hard they knocked into each other, and informed them that they were shrimps who needed to put on some muscle. In short, he acted like a bully, but somehow the behavior was okay now that he was an adult.

But Imelda seemed to love Bruno. She fluttered her eyelashes and admired his muscles and asked him question after question about his stint in the army.

Cousin Luciana told them not to worry about it—hadn't they noticed how disgusted Imelda looked whenever Bruno wasn't looking? But that was easy for _her_ to say, since Bruno wasn't allowed to roughhouse with her.

"We have to stop this," Felipe said to Óscar, and they considered writing a letter to Héctor, and even went so far as to ask his landlady Señora Zedillo if he'd left an itinerary. The landlady said he hadn't left one with her, but he had left a letter behind in case someone asked after him. She handed it to them, no doubt assuming they would pass it on to their sister, since her name was scrawled on the envelope.

On their walk back home, the twins stared at the envelope, unsure of what to do. "He probably put his schedule inside," Óscar suggested, before pointing out the indisputable truth that if they gave the letter to Imelda, she would throw it in the fire, and they would never see the contents.

But Felipe had another concern. "If we open it and she finds out we opened it, she'll throw _us_ in the fire."

They placed the letter under Óscar's mattress and resolved that if Bruno gave them one more coscorron, they would open the letter. They prepared themselves for another night of Bruno, but to their relief, that night Bruno's chair was occupied instead by Diego.

The twins wouldn't say that they _liked_ Diego. They also wouldn't say that Diego _liked_ anything. His eyelids were perpetually half-closed, what few compliments he paid the cooking or their sister were brief and routine, and when asked how his day had been, the answer was always an unenthusiastic "fine."

Nights with Héctor involved music and dancing—Gloria and Javier swore they'd fallen in love dancing to Héctor's guitar, and Héctor played enough silly songs to keep the twins and Luciana entertained. Nights with Diego, on the other hand, involved a lot of yawning from all parties. But at least Diego didn't pay the twins any notice, and they privately decided that if their sister married Diego, it wouldn't be so bad.

And then one day, Diego was replaced with Rodrigo Nieto.

Rodrigo the twins liked. Like Bruno, he had served in the military, but unlike Bruno, he understood that it was not acceptable to put civilian twelve-year-old boys in headlocks. Luciana told them Rodrigo was encantador, and they took her word for it.

Nearly everyone loved Rodrigo. Imelda was all smiles when he came, their mother was all smiles when he was so much as mentioned, and their father and Tío Lorenzo began discussing the possibility of a double wedding.

In fact, the twins would have said that everyone loved Rodrigo, except that Gloria and Javier, of all people, got worried looks on their faces whenever he came up. They started inserting themselves between Imelda and Rodrigo after dinner, and one evening after Rodrigo and Javier had left, the twins heard Gloria insisting to Imelda that this wasn't fair to Rodrigo.

They privately agreed with Gloria. They loved their sister, but she had a horrible temper and was only any fun when Héctor was around. They would never admit it to Imelda, but they thought Rodrigo could probably do better.

Luciana rolled her eyes when they told her this and sighed with the worldly air of a thirteen-year-old that that wasn't what Gloria had meant. Then she called them idiotas, they threw dirt clods at her, and the three of them soon forgot all about Imelda's love life.

Three days after the Tarascoto Music Festival, Javier had managed to learn the results from a friend. A mariachi act from Rioverde had walked away with the grand prize. The twins were unsure when Héctor was set to return to Santa Cecilia; his partner Ernesto had probably scheduled more gigs on the way back, extending travel time. The twins supposed that the information was probably contained in the letter under Óscar's mattress, and again argued about whether they should open it. But then Rodrigo came over and offered to take them fishing, and the letter again left their minds. They returned proudly brandishing several small fish, which they guessed would be able to feed the entire family, and then some. Rodrigo quietly handed Imelda the larger fish he had caught.

"Muchas gracias, Rodrigo," Imelda said warmly. "You are a man of many talents!"

Gloria, who had just finished setting the table for dinner, rolled her eyes.

Imelda caught the expression and glared at her cousin. "You cannot count today, Gloria," she announced. "You have set the table for twelve. We are only eleven."

"It is no mistake," Gloria said casually, taking off her apron and hanging it on a peg by the door. "Didn't I mention it to you? Javier and I asked Héctor over for dinner."

Imelda dropped the fish, which splatted on the tile floor. "Why would you do that?" she demanded.

Javier was in the corner repairing a wobbly chair, and spoke now with the same studied nonchalance his fiancée had employed. "We ran into him this afternoon—he'd just arrived in town, and we need to discuss our wedding music with him soon."

Gloria nodded, and met her cousin's furious eyes innocently. "He said he was free tonight, and it seemed rude not to invite him for dinner." She walked to the doorway. "Don't worry, Imelda," she added right before she walked out, "you will not need to speak with him. He will sit by us, and after dinner, the three of us will leave to discuss the music."

The twins scooped up Rodrigo's fish, and took it and their own fish to the kitchen, eager to escape the tense mood that had overtaken the dining room.


	3. Chapter 3

Final chapter!

Sorry the formatting is a little janky. I could not for the life of me figure out how to add in extra lines to separate stanzas. The doc manager would just gobble them up whenever I tried, so I had to MacGuyver the situation a little bit. If anyone knows how to do this, please let me know.

* * *

Imelda's mother was no longer blind to Héctor, and insisted on seating him at the far end of the table. He sat sandwiched between Gloria and Javier, and across from Luciana and the twins.

Luciana studied the musician sitting across the table from her. "So you lost the competition," she announced bluntly.

"Second place," Héctor corrected.

Luciana shrugged, unappreciative of the difference. "Why did you lose?" she asked.

Héctor glared at the 13-year-old girl. "Because we're not as good as the Rioverde mariachis?" he suggested.

Luciana calmly shoveled rice into her mouth, and mulled over that explanation. "That makes sense, I guess." She turned to her sister. "Maybe you could hire the Rioverde mariachis to play at your wedding-ah!" Her eyes darted from Gloria, to Héctor, to Javier, unsure which one had just kicked her under the table. She suspected it was Gloria, but Héctor and Javier were glaring at her so angrily she couldn't safely eliminate them.

Luciana resumed eating her rice, and wished that these joven would just sort themselves out, already. Lately every meal felt like they were putting on a performance.

Meanwhile on the other side of the table, Rodrigo, Imelda's father, and Tío Lorenzo were discussing Rodrigo's stables. Rodrigo had attempted to bring Imelda into the conversation a few times, but each time he said her name, she jumped slightly in her chair, looked dazed, apologized for her inattention, and then glared at Héctor, as if _he_ had been personally responsible for her wandering mind. When Héctor noticed that she was scowling at him, he gave her a wincing smile, which only deepened her scowl.

Everyone was relieved when dinner was over, and Héctor, Gloria, and Javier went to the study. Imelda's mother and Natalia cleaned the dishes, and the rest of the family went to the patio: Imelda's father, Tío Lorenzo, and Rodrigo discussed politics, Imelda did needlework, and the twins and Luciana whispered in the corner. Soon the music started, weak but unmistakable, from the study.

Imelda stabbed her needle into the handkerchief she'd been working on so hard that she drew blood from her other hand, and it took all her self-control not to cry in pain.

"Héctor plays very well," Rodrigo eventually commented, smiling at the tune that was now bouncing from the study. "Perhaps we should ask them to bring their discussion into the patio, so we may hear him better."

Imelda immediately objected to that idea. "I have had enough of Héctor's music," she cited as her reason. Rodrigo didn't press it.

It was soon after this that Luciana decided she'd had enough of the patio. She couldn't follow her father and uncle's conversation, Imelda was no fun at all, and she'd spoken enough to the twins to last her a lifetime. She stood up, announced that she was going to join her sister in the study, and marched away, closely followed by Óscar and Felipe.

When she barged into the study, she informed its occupants loudly that it was deadly dull out on the patio. "They're talking _politics_ , and I don't know why you and Rodrigo like Imelda so much," she announced to Héctor. "She's such a muermo!"

Luckily the twins had closed the door as soon as she'd begun talking, and the party on the patio was spared her assessment.

"You shouldn't say such things, mija," Gloria scolded her sister.

Luciana shrugged unconcernedly and took a seat next to Héctor. "Play a new song, Héctor," she ordered.

"Are you sure you want me to?" asked Héctor with a grin. "You wouldn't rather have the Rioverde mariachis sing you a song?"

"Of course I would," Luciana answered. "But they're not here and you are."

Héctor had to accept that logic. "But your sister and Javier are deciding the songs I play tonight," he pointed out.

Luciana ordered her sister to order Héctor to play a new song.

"Fine," Gloria sighed, feeling a little guilty about having kicked her sister earlier. "Do you have any new songs, Héctor?"

"Just one," Héctor admitted. "I think you might like it…" His fingers slid to his guitar's seventh fret, he began to half-strum-half-pick a song, and started to sing.

.

 _Should you marry Mateo?_

 _That man who eats every last dish_

 _He does nothing quicker_

 _Than drink up his liquor_

 _Imelda, what more could you wish?_

 _._

He had selected the perfect audience for such a song: Luciana, Óscar, and Felipe all cracked up, and Gloria and Javier did their best not to.

"Now Bruno!" Luciana demanded. Héctor gamely launched into the second verse:

.

 _Could you marry good Bruno?_

 _A fine caballero indeed_

 _His life's so exciting_

 _The brawling, the fighting_

 _Imelda, what more could you need?_

 _._

Bruno's verse met with a similar reception, and Héctor began verse three:

.

 _Will you marry Diego?_

 _He acts like he's so nonchalant_

 _He'll yawn right before you_

 _And always ignore you_

 _Imelda, want more could you want?_

 _._

"Magnífico!" Luciana announced. She thought for a moment. "I don't know how the Rioverde mariachis could be better than you."

"Well," Héctor admitted, inspecting his fingertips with a show of fake modesty, "Ernesto thought it was suspicious that two of the Rioverde mariachis were related to the judges, but I'm sure they decided fairly…"

"Now Rodrigo!" demanded Luciana.

"Ah," Héctor shook his head. "That I cannot do." He tried to explain to the children: "Rodrigo, he's not silly. He doesn't belong in a silly song with Mateo, Bruno, and Diego. Rodrigo and myself," he made a goofy face at the children and spoke in a deep voice, "we are _serious_ men deserving _serious_ songs." He stood up and yawned. "I should go now. I have invaded your hospitality for long enough, and the songs for the wedding are all selected."

"When will you be out of town next?" Gloria asked, standing up to see Héctor off. "So we'll know not to pick those dates."

"Ah, no te preocupes," Héctor assured her. "Pick whatever date you like. I'm staying in town for the time being."

Javier kissed his fiancée goodbye, eliciting groans of disgust from the children, and offered to walk back to town with Héctor. The two men went to the kitchen to pay their respects to the two women of the household, receiving leftover polvorones de canela from Gloria's mother and a grunted goodbye from Imelda's mother. Héctor suggested skipping the goodbyes on the patio, and Javier admitted it was probably for the best.

"Imelda, she has a temper," Javier stated the obvious as they set off on the road.

"Not a temper," Héctor corrected his companion, strumming on his guitar. "Passion."

Javier silently thought that in Imelda, they seemed to be one and the same.

When they reached the town, Javier headed to his family's house. Héctor waved goodbye and sat at the fountain in the town square, strumming at his guitar. He didn't love the guitar—it was Ernesto's spare, and had difficulty keeping tune. But it would serve its purpose.

He fiddled with the melody of the song he'd presented tonight, and sang the first line of the fourth verse. "Why not marry Rodrigo…" He frowned at the night sky and tried to summon the next lyrics.

Soon the subject of verse four walked up to him, also carrying a bag of polvorones de canela. His bag was notably larger than either of the bags Héctor or Javier had received. "Héctor," he nodded.

"Rodrigo," Héctor nodded back.

To Héctor's surprise, Rodrigo sat down next to him. Héctor looked at him uneasily.

"Are you going to keep finding excuses to visit Imelda?" Rodrigo asked.

This did nothing to allay Héctor's unease. Still, he nodded truthfully. "You're not going to fight me, are you?" he asked.

Rodrigo laughed and bit into one of his sweets. "No, no," he assured him. "You are safe from me."

"Good," Héctor replied. "I'm already ugly enough."

Rodrigo let that comment pass, and pointed to a house in the distance. "Do you know who lives there?" he asked.

Héctor shook his head.

"Romina Campos," Rodrigo answered. "She moved into town a month ago, staying with her aunt and uncle."

Héctor frowned at Rodrigo, and tried to figure out how Romina Campos was relevant to the conversation.

"You haven't spent much time in Santa Cecilia lately," Rodrigo told Héctor. "If you had, you would know that she has become the most desirable niña in town."

Héctor just looked more puzzled. Was Rodrigo suggesting Héctor try for this Romina?

"I started paying my respects to Señorita Imelda last week," Rodrigo informed Héctor. "The first chance I got, I told Imelda that she seemed very nice, but I was not interested, because I was enamorado de Romina."

Héctor's left hand clamped onto the sixth fret, and his right thumb slapped against the strings. The product was less than harmonious.

"I don't understand," Héctor said slowly. "You've been paying your respects to Imelda—her family thinks you are about to propose!"

Granted, a small part of him admitted the same had been true of _him_ a couple of weeks ago.

Still, maybe instead of Rodrigo punching him, it was _his_ job to punch Rodrigo. He surveyed Rodrigo's frame and wondered to himself if he could take him.

But Rodrigo quickly explained. "When I told Imelda that I was uninterested in her, she let out a big sigh and said not to get a swollen head, because of course she wasn't interested in me, either."

A cool feeling of relief started to spread throughout Héctor's body, from his gut to his very fingertips. That did sound like something his Imelda would say.

Rodrigo was still speaking. "She said she didn't mind my using her to make Romina jealous. I gathered…" he looked at Héctor curiously and spoke very slowly, "that she felt she had something to prove to someone, too…"

Héctor nodded, remembering their argument on the patio before he'd left for Tarascoto.

"That could be," Héctor said vaguely.

"Well…" Rodrigo stood up and stretched his arms, "I wish I knew who that person was, because I want to try for Romina in earnest soon. She knows I have warmed the heart of the coldest woman in town, and I think that will help my chances."

Héctor flinched at this description. "Imelda's not cold," he objected.

"Maybe not," Rodrigo admitted, "where you're concerned, anyway. Well," he nodded his head, "buena suerte." As he strode away, he whistled the tune of Héctor's new song.

When Rodrigo disappeared into a nearby building, Héctor sat in stunned silence for a few moments, and then jumped to his feet.

Héctor tuned his guitar on his way to Imelda's house. He just couldn't manage to get the D-string to stop rattling, and he wondered if he would need to restring the darn thing, or maybe even replace the nut or saddle. For the hundredth time, he cursed his own clumsiness. When Ernesto had discovered he'd tripped over his own guitar, he hadn't been able to stop laughing.

"I always said you would break your neck one day, amigo!" Ernesto had roared. "Do you get it?" He'd held up his guitar and struck an f-note on the high e-string, and slid all the way to the twelfth fret. "Break your _neck?_ Like a guitar neck?"

"Yes, Ernesto," Héctor had grumbled, in no mood for jokes at the time. "You have discovered a pun. Congratulations. I am very happy for you."

He could still remember Imelda's words as he sat there the ground, picking up his guitar's mutilated body.

"Of course!" she had snapped. "You break your guitar like you break your promises!"

Yes, he admitted to himself, he was a _little_ bit behind on the timeline he and Imelda had discussed a few months ago. He'd really been hoping to win that competition in Tarascoto, which would have given him enough money that he could have afforded a small house, instead of squatting with Ernesto in a room of the Zedillo boarding house. It was annoying enough having to wait in the plaza whenever Ernesto had a "lady friend" over, and living there with Ernesto and Imelda was a completely impossibility. He could afford to rent his own room at this point instead of splitting the cost with Ernesto, but it still seemed a shameful thing to do, to rip Imelda from a nice casa and a family who loved her for a dingy boarding house room.

And Imelda's suggestion of living with her family? He'd dismissed it every time she'd brought it up, having noticed the way Imelda's mother looked at him…or to be more accurate, didn't look at him. She would only be satisfied with the match if he could prove he could provide for her daughter.

Still unsuccessful at tuning the buzz from the D-string, he sat down at the side of the road and removed the whole string. He hastily tied it back through the bridge, looped it into the headstock, and began turning the tuning peg again. Still the buzz. Ay!

"Sounding like that, it's a miracle you even got second place in Tarascoto," someone said behind him.

He shot to his feet, leaving his guitar on the ground. "Imelda!" he gasped.

She stood there in the moonlight. She'd removed the ribbons from her hair, and she was wearing a plain work dress. She clutched a shawl around her shoulders, even though it was a warm night.

"Is this your new spot?" she asked, digging at the dirt road with her shoe. "Ten yards from my casa, outside of town?" She tsked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "You won't get much foot traffic here."

"Well…" he shrugged, finding words very difficult to summon, "quality over quantity."

She looked back down at her feet, but Héctor had caught the slight smile she was holding back.

She had forgiven him. Why, he couldn't say. But he had accepted some time ago that when it came to Imelda, he was a very lucky man, and it would be foolish to question a good thing.

Still, he was hesitant to actually say something; doing so might press his luck. So he just admired the sight of her in the moonlight: young, beautiful, and, for some crazy reason, in love with him.

"Gloria told me you are still playing for their wedding," Imelda eventually said.

He nodded. "Of course. I am looking forward to it."

"She also told me that…" Imelda paused and dared to look up at him, "that you are staying in Santa Cecilia for a while…"

He nodded again. "Of course. I am looking forward to it."

"Well…" she shifted back and forth for a few seconds, and then stuck her hands on her hips, "don't leave for so long again, understand me?" She barked those last words like a military captain.

Héctor nodded, and smiled. Coldest woman in town—hah! His Imelda was all fire.

When Imelda had placed her hands on her hips, her shawl had fallen the ground, and as he picked it up and handed it to her, Héctor realized that she had something slung around her back.

"Is that a guitar?" he demanded, spotting the telltale headstock peeking out above her shoulder.

"Oh—sí!" Imelda said. She took the white guitar from her back and held it out with trembling hands. "I bought it a few weeks ago, when you were out of town—a traveling merchant came and I saw it and thought it was handsome and I thought you might…"

She trailed off as Héctor took the instrument from her. He threw the sash over his head, fingered an open G-chord, and strummed.

It sounded horrible, of course. He smiled apologetically and began tuning. Then he strummed again, and this time the G-chord resonated through the night, bright, clean, and cheerful.

"Beautiful," Imelda said breathlessly. She was giving him that admiring look that only she gave him and Héctor's heart was thumping prestissimo.

It wasn't "now or never." The way she was looking at him, Héctor knew that he could screw up again and again, and she would still give him that look.

But he wanted it to be now.

He took a deep breath. "I wrote you a song while I was gone," he told her.

Her face colored more deeply.

Was Santa Cecilia aware that most of the love songs they heard these days were inspired by the coldest woman in town?

Héctor took a deep breath and started to strum.

.

 _Should you marry Mateo?_

 _That man who eats every last dish_

 _He does nothing quicker_

 _Than drink up his liquor_

 _Imelda, what more could you wish?_

 _._

Imelda began laughing, that sweet laugh that only Héctor got to hear. He took that as a good sign and continued his song:

.

 _Could you marry good Bruno?_

 _A fine caballero indeed_

 _His life's so exciting_

 _The brawling, the fighting_

 _Imelda, what more could you need?_

 _._

 _Will you marry Diego?_

 _He acts like he's so nonchalant_

 _He'll yawn right before you_

 _And always ignore you_

 _Imelda, want more could you want?_

 _._

 _Why not marry Rodrigo?_

 _Hardworking and always on task_

 _He's friendly and funny_

 _With plenty of money_

 _Imelda, what more could you ask?_

 _._

For the final verse he slowed down, playing as tenderly as he could and drawing out the words:

.

 _Alas of course there's poor Héctor_

 _He's okay looking, I guess_

 _With nothing to boast_

 _Though he loves you the most_

 _Imelda, mi alma, say yes_

 _._

As he picked the C-Major chord on the 8th fret, Imelda angled her chin so she was looking at the night sky. She dabbed her left eye with her shawl.

"You're making me cry, you baboso," she sniffed. She then dabbed at her right eye.

Héctor looked at her expectantly. "Imelda…" he said after a few seconds of just Imelda's sniffing. "Do you have an answer for me?"

"You didn't have to do that," she said, still staring at the sky. She sounded congested. "You don't have to propose just so you don't lose me."

Héctor was confused. "Do you not want to marry me?"

She stomped the ground and finally turned her red-rimmed eyes to him. "Of course I want to marry you, you idiota!" She had a watery smile Héctor had never seen on her, but he liked very much. "But I don't want us to get married just because I want to!"

"I want to get married!" Héctor insisted sincerely.

"Where will we _live_ , Héctor?" Imelda demanded.

Héctor had given this matter a lot of thought lately. "The Venturas are moving soon—I bet we could buy their house."

Imelda looked unconvinced. "But where would we get the money?"

"I have enough."

Imelda looked even less convinced. "From what? I doubt second place in that contest pays that well!"

"I have other sources," Héctor said vaguely.

But being vague with Imelda didn't work. She fixed a glare on him. " _Héctor…_ " she said in a low voice.

He sighed and scratched the back of his neck. "A man in Tarascoto offered to buy some of my songs," he admitted. "I could sell a couple of them and—"

Imelda shook her head. "De ninguna manera," she said firmly. "You are not selling your songs to buy a house."

"Just a couple of them—maybe _Pintando tus Mejillas Rojas_ or—"

But Imelda still shook her head, and she placed her hand on his arm. "Héctor Rivera," she said sternly, "one day you will be remembered as the finest musician in all of Mexico. And I will not have you _sell_ any of your legacy." She wiped a few tears from her cheeks, and then one tear that was slowly rolling down Héctor's cheek. "We will wait," she announced.

"But Imelda—"

"It is decided," Imelda said with finality. "You will tour when you can for the next year—not for four weeks at a time anymore," she amended quickly, "but you will tour and share your music with others. And I will work and soon, between the two of us, we will have earned enough money to afford a place to call our own."

"Imelda…"

"And right now," Imelda took his hand, "we are going to my house and telling my parents, so my mother does not invite anyone else over for lime soup. Oh!" she paused. "One more thing!"

"Wha—"

Imelda kissed him and, when they finished, they walked to see her parents hand-in-hand.


End file.
